Tomorrow could be boring

Roses and festivals

This month I have been mostly smelling of roses and attending festivals. If you're interested in what happened in Turkey during the rose harvest, head on over here - and if you'd like to see my Hipstamatic snapshots from this week's festival, check them out here.

 

Seoul Music

I had a really great time in Seoul - read about my trip here!

There is something about Korea that seems to resonate with me; I can't put my finger on what it might be. I hope to go back there some day.

Meanwhile, my next trip is booked: Turkey to see the rose harvest and essential oil distillation in a couple of week's time.

 

R.I.P. BNTBTBB

The third instalment of Study Notes is now out at Basenotes. Follow my adventures as a student of perfumery. And a complete fan-girl.

The great illustration is, again, by the lovely and talented Grant Osborne. I adore his style!

Meanwhile, if you're interested in perfumes at all and happen to be around London in July, you might want to head to http://www.gorillaperfume.com and register for a bit of a bizarre olfactory event (you can visit free between 14th and 18th of July).

Eastercon report: Odyssey 2010

Odyssey 2010, The 2010 Eastercon, 2 - 5 April 2010
Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Heathrow, London, UK

If you have a greater than average urge to don a hat, waistcoat, beard or a ponytail (especially if all at once), you may be a Fan and not realise it. I currently seem to be making it to only one con, and even to that at the pathetic frequency of every other year. Each time I decide that I'd like to go to more of them. They are fun and fascinating events. Also probably one of the few places where you'll see teenagers with knitting needles instead of hoodies. Perhaps the only place.

Even though as a child growing up in Finland I was reading Lem, Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke and Vonnegut with the odd Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars book thrown in long before I'd got into Star Trek and the original Battlestar Galactica, I didn't know anything about 'Fandom' before my first Eastercon in Jersey. I'm so glad I now know they exist. One of the first Fans (with a capital F) I met back then turned out to be a bit of a Fandom superhero, Peter Weston. We still only ever bump into each other and catch up at Eastercons. 

According to Mike Carey, the difference between a Comic Con and an Eastercon is that the former feels less connected and less personal and the latter feels more like a bunch of people who've known each other for ages. There must be so many levels of these cons I am completely oblivious to - fandom politics and hierarchy, for instance, but to a naive punter like myself the environment feels un-snobbish, welcoming, inclusive and exhilarating.

As always there were more interesting programme items than time, and short of creating a space-time anomaly, one had to choose. I left out the bondage workshops, animatronics and sword fighting techniques, but there were still plenty of sessions I would like to have seen and couldn't.

When talking about happiness, life coaches and other such bods often recite that experiences make us happier than material things. The good (or bad, depending on one's viewpoint) thing about Eastercons is that they provide you with plenty of both.

FRIDAY 2.4.2010

9am

We pile into the Smart, put on Jokaiselle Tulta and drive down to Heathrow. The journey is shorter than two years ago because we now live in Farnham instead of Horley.

10am

Life of a Hydrogen Atom, Nik Whitehead

At first I am slightly concerned because the black and white Power Point presentation that greets us seems like an example of 'How Not To Use Power Point' from my presentation skills course. Within seconds, Nik's charismatic delivery and humour override any such doubts. She makes the session feel as though I've been given the pudding before the main meal.

"You're a different audience - different in all the right ways," she quips at one point.

Nik takes us through Life, Universe and Almost Everything in one hour, from the Big Bang to a sobering look at what might happen to our Universe in the end.

Current contenders are:

- The Big Freeze = if our Universe is considered to be open and will continue to expand ad infinitum, it will eventually suffer a heat death.

- The Big Crunch = if our universe is considered to be closed, it may eventually stop expanding and crunch inwards; possibly creating another Big Bang in the process. (Apparently this line of thinking is falling out of favour)

- The Big Rip = Everything will be torn apart by the expansion of the Universe and there will be 'rips' in space-time.

Luckily for us, our Universe is only around 14 billion years old. Still, I do frequently suffer from what could maybe be described as existential depression.

Afterwards, I reflect on how irritating I find it when people prefer superstition and woo to the marvels that are right here and very real. We are all made from stars. Fact. How much more amazing could things be?

11am

Comics 101 - Essential Comics for New Readers, Sam Sykes, Claude Lalumière, Mike Carey, Crazy Dave

"Comics is not a genre. It's a medium."

The panel throws out so much excellent commentary and information that I fill 5 pages of my notebook. It is nice to see Dave Mansfield again though I don't think he recognises me from 2008. (If you're reading - hi Crazy Dave!).

One segment makes me hold my breath a little. "What would you recommend to a child who is new to comics?"

I feel too intimidated to comment at this point, just in case mentioning Asterix, Lucky Luke and Tintin would be thought of as dorky. Relieved that someone else puts their hand up and mentions them instead. Also lament that Marsupilami never really made it over here.

Of course, coming from Finland, my comic book reading was hugely influenced by the Moomin comics, as well as Aku Ankka. I don't mention these.

I'm impressed by Claude. He is insightful and articulate. At one point he says: "Comics is a language - if you haven't been exposed to it from an early age it can be hard to decode." Of course this could be some kind of industry cliché I am blissfully unaware of, but it was certainly one of the most thought-provoking moments for me.

The discussion touches on the lamentable decline and eventual disappearance of newsstand comics, which has probably been one of the biggest causes of declining readership over the last couple of decades. I wonder if we could start some sort of a movement to bring comics back. Maybe that would be as likely to succeed as getting your kids really into radio plays.

Here are some of the recommendations:

 Flight anthologies - about storytelling and a sense of wonder.

Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination as a comic. Apparently very hard to get hold of.

Starstruck.

Transmetropolitan.

Schlock Mercenary (web comic)

Ultimate Spiderman (if you want to get your superhero-fan kids into comics, but don't want to make their head explode by all the back-story).

Sam Sykes recommends Uzumaki by saying: "Are there any Japanese people in the audience?" No hands go up. He continues: "Good, because I might have phrased this a little differently otherwise. If you want truly weird shit, you've got to angle in that direction."

Walking Dead (apparently drawn by a really lovely bloke who once drew Dave a picture of a mad zombie scientist).

Sam also recommends The Boys, which he describes as a "a really horrible, violent comic." I'm beginning to spot a theme with Sam.

Claude mentions Love and Rockets, which I am chuffed about because I've only recently discovered it myself.

Palomar was described as magic realism, which makes me think that I must look it up immediately.

Beanworld is recommended for kids. Apparently it's about walking, talking beans.

Palestine is mentioned as an excellent achievement of conveying complex issues and the genuine horror of war.

Dave explains the general gist of A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary. Sadly it seems to have drawn to a close.

The Age of Bronze is mentioned as a good example of historically well researched project.

The Sandman comics, Lucifer and a nifty manga website are mentioned by members of the audience.

12pm

Lunch - shredded carrot and currant salad from the con Buffet. A bit soggy.

1pm

Iain Banks Before the Wasp Factory, David Haddock

The editor of Banksoniain fanzine takes us through what Iain was writing in the 60s and 70s. We hear anecdotes about his early adventure stories and terrible character names. My husband has to explain to me why Toss Macabre is funny.

2pm

Allergies - an Introduction to Our Current Understanding, Brian Gray

"Histamine is basically molecular teargas."

Who knew talking about snot could be so entertaining? Brian is a super-charismatic, knowledgeable, educated and a less creepy version of Sideshow Bob. His presentation is engaging and informative. I leave with a well-put-together handout and a grin. I'm also now jealous of North Americans' anaphylaxis kits. Mine is pretty pathetic by comparison.

3pm

Was going to go to: Writing Steampunk. Instead end up at: Battlestar Atlantia (LARP intro session)

 The hotel corridors are plastered with these cool posters. Both Timo and I are big fans of the new Battlestar Galactica. Even my text message alert goes: "By your command" in a cylon voice. But I digress. I've not done Live Action - or any other kind of - role playing for a very, very long time. I probably won't start again now. However, I must have one of these posters. So I head to the games intro session and speak to the artist. She is delighted that I like her work and lets me have one of the spare copies. I'll frame it later.

I spend the remaining time browsing through the dealer room (for those who don't know what a dealer room is; it's a science fiction fan market with everything from clothing, jewellery and books to two-headed bears). I pass the Genki Gear stall twice before admitting to myself that I must buy at least one of their t-shirts.

4pm

Utopia - How the Concept Has Developed in Philosophy and SF, Iain M. Banks, Elizabeth Counihan, Edward James, Nik Whitehead

"In order to create Utopia, you have to destroy what was there before."

A fascinating discussion about the very definitions of Utopia and Dystopia. "Utopias are fun to live in, but crap to write about," said Iain at one point. He clarified by stating that it's much more interesting to write about what he called the peripheral stuff; where conflict occurs.

"Brave New World seemed like a Utopia to the Americans at the time: hey, free drugs!"

5pm

How Writers, Artists and Illustrators Interact, Mike Carey, Al Davidson, Deidre Counihan, Chris Moore, Steve K

 

There is a definite difference between book jacket illustration and graphic novels/comics in that the former is more like packaging design. It's meant to sell a product. There is some more discussion about how novelists and illustrators interact. I've never properly thought about what goes into comic script writing and the session ends up focusing on this topic fairly heavily. I learn about the old Marvel 3-step process and what happens these days instead. The best part is when everyone starts to share their war-stories about demanding agents and ridiculous art direction. Mentioning no names, of course.

I discover that Mike Carey is a fellow book-sniffer and find this delightful. There's nothing like a science fiction convention to make you feel less like an outsider.

 SATURDAY 3.4.2010

It's my birthday and we decide to have a slow start. This allows me to open presents, the winner of which is this super-awesome Irregular Choice bag. I immediately turf out all the junk from my current handbag and put the new one into use.

 

 

10:30am

We bump into Martin Owton, Dave Gullen, Gaye Sebold from the T-party. I make a feeble attempt to explain why I've let my membership lapse to never-seen associate status. Martin suggests I should try the (now) local to me writing group he is a member of in Farnborough.

11am

Guest of Honour: Iain M. Banks, interviewed by Jane Killick

I am beginning to understand why the only two authors I really couldn't seem to get into when I first started reading English fantasy and science fiction as a non-native speaker were Terry Pratchett and Iain M. Banks. Who knew space opera could be so...colloquial?

Iain is animated, charismatic and charming. His talk keeps everyone entertained and the hour whizzes past.

I am still catching up with my Banks reading. I've gone up the science fiction 'branch' of his career first.

Iain's fantastic Scottish accent is beginning to flavour my internal dialogue.

12pm

Bad Science, Ben Goldacre

"All Men Will Have Big Willies"

At first I couldn't believe my luck when I saw that Ben was going to be here too. You'd just have to throw in some kind of olfactory lecture and it'd be perfect programming for Pia.

There are some technical difficulties in the beginning. Ben ends up with his laptop on a chair, on a table and comments: "Now that the Pierrot-part of my presentation is over..."

A great presenter, Ben shows that he's done this sort of thing on stage before. The early technical hitch cuts the show short, which is a shame because everyone is enjoying themselves immensely.

I already know most of the stories he tells us because I've got his book and read his blog, but I'm thrilled at the opportunity to see him in action.

1pm

We pile out of the room and to my surprise, Ben stops me: "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

We talk for about an hour and Timo joins in half-way through. I tell Ben about the book I'm working on and he scolds me for not pulling my finger out and sorting it out already. He threatens to write it if I don't.

We end up missing what we were planning on doing and decide to have something to eat instead.

I pop to the dealers room and treat myself to an adorable (very flattering) portrait done by Al Davidson. I can't resist the pull of another Genki t-shirt, so I reason that it's my birthday and who needs to eat lunch anyway? I end up chatting with Lydia on the stall and she tells me about their adventures as an independent company.

Sara-Jayne Townsend from the T-party is also in the room and we stop and chat for a while about her new book Suffer the Children. She is quietly hopeful, but very down to earth about it all.

3pm

Drawing Comic Art, Al Davidson

"Never commit too early to your lines."

I signed up for this session, which is lucky since it seemed over-subscribed. There aren't enough chairs and the arrangement is awkward for Al because he needs to draw onto a flip chart from a seated position. Somehow Al manages to run the session with ease despite these difficulties. He shows us some of his Doctor Who original artwork panels, discussed various drawing techniques - and we get to participate in some quick lessons in comic art short-hand. It's amazing how much Al is able to fit in. I learn a lot, but leave wishing I could sign up for a course taught by him.

4pm

Whisky tasting with Iain Banks

Did you know that Iain's original idea for a science fiction pen-name was a blend of his favourite whisky brands at the time?

We didn't sign up for this session, which means we were banished to the back rows and only got a few glasses passed around to us. The volume of audience 'participation' increases in tandem with number of whisky samples. The mods seem annoyed by this, but I don't mind. It's like a strange kind of bar with pauses for tasting notes. To my delight, the discussion touches on olfaction a fair amount, at which point I am able to contribute a little. Now it really is a perfect programme for Pia.

The whisky tasting ends at 6pm and we head home. I only sniffed, so I'm driving.

SUNDAY 4.4.2010

10am

Biggest Biological Tropes in SF, Stephen Gaskell, Paul McAuley, Michael Owen, Sharon Reamer, Gary Stratmann

"Life as we know it (if there's a Jim in the audience)".

The usual topics of carbon-based life forms versus the possibility of silicon-based; what IS life anyway and all that jazz gets covered. Very interesting, but find myself once again mesmerised by Paul McAuley's brain.

The question of "is there another type of life on Earth that we just haven't discovered yet?" is an interesting one.

Gary has a fantastic way with words: "The broader question of life is easily answered - it's DNA versus Lego." And: "It's been important to human psychology to believe we are special."

11am

Guest of Honour: Alastair Reynolds

"It's a great time to be writing science fiction. Science moves faster, so you just have to work a little bit harder."

Alastair presents a journey through early science fiction to modern writing by drawing on the theme of how science and fiction interact. He puts developments in the genre in political and cultural context and admits to still hoping that faster than light travel could be possible.

He mentions his frustration at not knowing what will be discovered by science after he has gone and I nod in agreement. It's one of the most annoying things about being curious.

12pm

We pick up a copy of Murky Depths from the dealers room. This is a new one for me, but the sample copy I picked up looked interesting.

Pictured: our book haul from the con.

2pm

Best Unread  (in English) European SF books, Jonathan Cowie, Jo Fletcher, Kirill Pleshkov, Hannu Rajaniemi, Christian Sauve, Ian Watson, Cheryl Morgan

Discussions about the difficulties of translation - and specifically - interpreting the content correctly are always fun, given my background, but I was cheating a bit and mostly looking for some good Finnish recommendations. Hannu mentioned Karsta, Apina ja Uusikuu and Lumikko ja Yhdeksan Muuta. I'll have to get hold of them when I next visit. I didn't know that 'New Weird' was called 'Uusi Kumma' in Finnish. It sounds funny.

3pm

Guest of Honour: Mike Carey

Mike is interviewed by Paul Cornell. The conversation moves fluidly through Mike's works. I am charmed by both of them. I hadn't noticed how much Mike looks like Lucifer in the comics until Paul points it out.

The pair cope admirably in what can only be described as a Monty Python-moment when two gophers decide to sweep the stage during the talk.

MONDAY 5.4.2010

10am

Language and Dialect in Writing, Iain M. Banks, Gary Couzens, Jude Roberts, Cheryl Morgan

The description of this panel featured a question I would have been interested in: "How interdependent are language and culture?"

Instead most of the panel focuses on Culture; which is still fine and entertaining, given that we're in the company of the person who invented it and another one who is writing her PhD on it. Audience participation moves the discussion towards personal experiences and reading of accents - how much we use accent and dialect as a social marker and so forth.

Timo suggests that I should give Feersum Endjinn a go. Iain says he wanted to make a short book longer "...so I thought I could slow it down by making you have to figure out 'what the hell is he saying now?'"

1pm

Was: Climate Scepticism: Pros and Cons, but we tossed a coin and went for Just a Minute instead.

Just a Minute, a rip-off of the game by the same name. John Dowd, Lisa Konrad, Sue Mason, Neil, Henry Proctor and Alastair Reynolds.

Some of the topics: the geography of Radisson Edwardian hotel, the colour blue, potatoes.

I manage to speak to Alastair briefly after the panel. He surprises me by guessing I'm Finnish and recommends Tahtivaeltaja magazine to me. He clearly has fantastic taste.

2pm

Black Holes For Beginners, Nik Whitehead

"Singularity really means: shit, we don't know what the maths is doing here. It's where it all breaks down."

I realise that we've come a full circle and end our con with another Nik Whitehead item. This session is even more fascinating than the first - probably because it involves so much more tantalisingly unknown and mysterious material.  I wish I could attend lectures by Nik all the time, but I doubt I'd have the smarts for it.

She mentions the 'spaghettification' of space-time and I can't resist shouting out: "Does that mean the Pastafarians are right?"

3pm

We're hungry and knackered and decide to head home. We're in the lobby paying for our parking when I lament to Timo that I hadn't had a chance to get my copy of Lucifer signed by the author. At this point, in a spooky replica of the John Meaney-moment from 2008, Mike Carey turns up and I get my autograph. He asks us whether we enjoyed the con and we try not to be too tongue-tied.

Homeward Bound

Listening to Plastic Beach on the way home, we discuss the con and how it feels for it to be over and whether we'll be going to the next one, or the one after that. Maybe the every-other-con pattern will continue, which may be just as well considering  how much you come away with. We pick up a bottle of Dalwhinnie 15-year-old. Cheers, Iain!

 

 

 

See the 2008 report here!

'tis the time for scanners and printers to explode!

We've moved to Farnham. It's an old market town, fairly rural, but still close-ish to London. Timo's new journey to work will take about an hour by train and another half an hour by tube. My trip to Poole will be shortened significantly and will take similar sort of time if all goes well. So geography certainly influenced our choice.

Yet there is an extra quality about this place - something I was trying to explain to Timo before he'd been - it's a little bit out-of-time, an imaginary England not quite stuck in the past, but neither apparently present in our world. It's how I imagined England to be before I came here, almost 18 years ago. Of course my ideas were quickly crushed by Streatham, Old Kent Road, Elephant & Castle, New Cross Gate, Peckham, Morden and all those lovely South London places. Years living in greasy flats above chip shops, damp basements and ex-council blocks made me hate London. I'm sure I would have loved London a lot more, had I lived in a W8 terrace.

And I do love London too. I love its theatres, museums, colleges, parks, shops, buzz, ideas and people. The mishmash of cultures and languages. But like a rich pudding, it can only be enjoyed in small doses. I have always had a tendency to absorb a great deal from my surroundings and it's useful when creating because inspiration and ideas seem to fly out of my head with ease, but there is a saturation point. This point is reached very quickly in London these days. It's too stimulating. Exhilarating in small doses.

Our new home is a dinky one bedroom house. We're renting it for (what what we hope for is a) shortish period before buying our own place around here. The mortgage and housing market is scary at the moment, so these plans are not much more than hopes for now.

There are beautiful woods and parks, cobbled streets, old architecture, friendly people and nice little shops. We do now live right next to the train track, so the current nuisance (still preferable to a chip shop) is the house-train-effect. Every time a train goes past, the building vibrates. There are several cracks on the walls and ceilings, which the owner pointed out to us when we moved in. I definitely wouldn't buy this place.

Timo and I have decided that at night, when we're drifting off to sleep and the train rumbles and the house vibrates, we imagine that we're on a big sleeper house-train, journeying somewhere new and exciting. It's that, or constantly stress about the noise. 

We seem to be on a neighbourhood cat-path. There's a tabby, black, bushy ginger and a half-moustachioed Poirot cat. They skulk past our patio doors to the woods opposite.

I finally have my new computer. We can't get broadband connected until mid-January, so it's been a little ironic to stare at the shiny new machine without being able to do much on it. Not to mention the irritation of troublesome new printer installation. Well, we've not managed to install it, put it that way. It's driven Timo to declare he never wants to see another bit of technology again (a threat which was immediately broken as he hurried back to his game of Civ).

And there's another kind of headexplody-risk around here - this one for the idea-rich/time-poor/impatiently wanting to try and learn and do too much-type Barbara Sher calls Scanners. At my fingertips in this town, I have opportunities to rekindle Russian (something I've wanted to do for a long time), learn to ride a horse (something my mother promised me when I was a child, but then never followed through), go on drawing and illustration classes, learn yoga, go to theatre, go see sock puppets, opera streamed directly from The Met, learn pottery, fabric printing, jewellery making... and I could go on. I have had to force myself to put all this to one side for now and argue that it'll all be still there once I've completed my perfumery and chemistry studies, written my nonfiction cosmetics industry novel and finished my picture book. I am wearing a wry smile as I write this, but the crazy part is that there is a crazy part in me that believes I can do all this stuff. This place is a scanner's dream or nightmare. Depends on your outlook.

Chemicals and mind-crushes

Isn't the picture Grant drew adorable? It makes more sense if you read my new column at Basenotes. This is the second in the series, entitled "A Very English Problem".

I've also got a new mind-crush in the form of Dara O'Briain. His rant about homeopathy and nutritionists is brilliant. Best quote: "Science knows it doesn't know everything or it would have stopped."

I brought back a toxic book from the library: "Toxic Beauty: How Hidden Chemicals in Cosmetics Harm You." It's written by a Reiki-healer who is convinced she knows what she's talking about, a bit like an astrologer might be convinced she knows better about heavenly bodies after talking to some people at NASA. I would despair, but luckily I've built up some resistance to this by now and my own chemistry studies are adding a whole new backbone to the way I view these scare-mongering messages nowadays. Once I finish my course I should really focus on the book I've been researching for the past few years and get it out there. It's time people stopped worrying about insignificant things and started worrying about stuff that could cause real harm instead. To themselves, to the environment and ultimately to the existence of human life itself. Trust me, whether we ingest a bit of lipstick isn't on that list.

Study Notes - a column about perfume studies

Basenotes, the family-owned and run perfume shrine with over 13.000 listed fragrances, industry news and a lively community has a new columnist. I'm hoping to make it a monthly series about being an adult distance-learner of perfumery and a trainee perfumer. For those of you who have been wondering who I work for, wonder no longer. The article contains the answer.

I still can't quite believe any of this is happening. It has been a bizarre journey. And this is only the beginning! I might still manage to somehow spectacularly cock it up. That'd make entertaining reading, but please cross your fingers for more of a positive outcome.

(Illustration by Grant Osborne)

Things and how to use them, part 1*

I used to really love writing lists. Then I wrote so many of them about so many things that they started to feel strangulating. And the tool became the point. Luckily, I was able to go on a Time Manager International course (I don't work for them, no, really, I actually found a corporate-sounding course genuinely helpful) and decided to have a go at NOT writing lists (and using their methods instead). So I stopped writing lists for a bit.

When I say I used to write lists, I'm not sure if the extent to which this habit had been ingrained into every aspect of my life is clear from the deceptively simple word "list".

The course tutor didn't know how to arrange his face when I explained the system I had developed to cope with my juggling. (I really like having a variety of things on the go at once, but I do have an upper limit to how many plates I can spin. The older I get the better I get at noticing when I'm reaching that limit before I drop any plates).

The system went like this: Normal Word document with a 3-column (multi-row) table. Each type of task was categorised a little bit like one might categorise blog topics: "homelife", "reading list", "health & fitness", "project name blahblah", "project..." etc. Each of these categories had its own colour. I had matching colour set in mini pens too; so any notes I made after I'd printed the current list could be made in the same colour.

The columns were: TASK (written in the appropriate colour, so I'd know by just looking at it whether it was work-stuff, my own stuff or other stuff), STARTED and FINISHED.

I would update the list about once a month. I'd print it off for the rest of the time and update things by hand (here's where the coloured pens became relevant) as I went along, so I always knew where I was with everything.

Obviously I still used a diary too, plus I had a year-planner where I could see at a glance what was going on.

What made that quite good is that it minimised post-it-notes and separate bits of paper. What made it quite clumsy is that updating it on my computer took too much time and it wasn't that easy to update on the go (despite the coloured pens). Plus, by the time I really started juggling (i.e., I started my current job and became even more of a plate-spinner), the list would get several pages long and it was beginning to seem like a millstone rather than a helpful tool.

Then there was the annual list. Now this, I'd been doing for years, at least for 10 years if not more - and it consists of just a simple A4 typed list of all the boxes I want to tick that year. It would include things like "finish X course" or "read X book" or "change address at X" and bigger things too; goals that might transfer from one year to the next.

I could also talk about cataloguing because it relates, but that's another topic. I have a feeling that all geeks like cataloguing things (and it's a really slippery slope - once you've catalogued your current reading list & written cute little book reviews for everything you read, then what's to stop you from cataloguing your entire book collection, or CDs or...).

Anyway, so after the Time Manager course, I put my lists to one side and really tried to survive without them. In the beginning I found it quite difficult, but not impossible. In fact, I had been expecting the transition to be harder. It would have been, but the new style of organiser was awesome - and completely suited to the whole plate-spinning way of life (working parents might enjoy this, or anyone running their own business, or working freelance on multiple projects): each main area of your life/work has its own numbered category. Each category has its own segment at the back of the organiser and what makes this superior to my list system is that you can react immediately if some new info becomes available. You can just put it in the right section - and the next time you are dealing with that topic/person/project, you just open at the right section and ta-dah, you pick up where you left off last time. No more trying to hold too much stuff in your head, or finding where you wrote that important bit of information.

It also has sections for "ideas" and "notes", which is lovely for those yet-to-be-categorised things on the run. The diary segments are awesome too; much more room to schedule your days and weeks than in any other organiser I've seen.

The downside? It's HUGE (I needed the larger size to fit everything in). But - you can just remove relevant bits (mini diary which is detachable & notepad) & take them with you on trips or to meetings. Though that then puts you back into the whole updating in one big chunk, rather than on the move. Still; small price to pay for the awesome tool. I now really rely on this and it almost feels like a Personal Assistant.

I've thought about electronic personal organisers, but so far, none have grabbed me. I also really hate the inability to "leaf through" stuff in a natural papery way. There is something necessary about paper in these for me.

The Annual List has stuck with me. I thought about what I was using it for and realised that it was still serving a purpose. It's a nice, reassuring, focusing, self-motivating, anti-flapping tool I will probably continue to use forever. I just tore up the 2008 list (only 4 things on it I didn't tick off; pretty good) and wrote up the 2009 list. The biggest item on the 2009 list is "Sell property/buy property/move house?". That's the aim, but who the hell knows what's going to happen. Luckily there are lots of other things on there that I can get done. The moving house thing might be a bit more complicated.

So now I'm friends with lists again, but in a new way. Our relationship has been re-defined. So far so good. And luckily, there's always Facebook and its list-writing-bandwagon for when I get cravings.

* This in no way implies there will be future parts to this series, though there may be, depending on circumstances and availability of loose thoughts in need of a home

More bubbles

My first product is in the shops. Specifically: the product idea I came up with, helped develop (both conceptually and as a fragrance) is now out worldwide. Customer feedback has been encouraging. So far, nobody (openly) hates it. So far, many people like it.

It feels very strange to have something that you've dreamed up - out in so many homes. People will walk around smelling of something I had a part in creating.

I hope so very, very much that this is first of many. I'm going to carry on as if that were the case. You never get anywhere by simply hoping, now do you?

(P.S. If you want to know how this all started, read some of the story from "Why I think I'm a nose").

A sonnet in jasmine

It's incredibly frustrating to dream in Shakespeare and write in picture book script. In perfumery, I have such flights of fancy in my olfactory cortex, but my skills aren't up to it yet. I wish I could spend an alternative lifetime in Grasse, piggybacking inside the head of an offspring of a formidable perfume famille whilst he learns the vocabulary of the craft. Memorises notes.

Sort of like Sam(antha) Beckett in France.

I have limited opportunities to start that process now. Depending on the success of my first attempts, maybe those opportunities will increase. I know that I will use every one of them fully.

Actually, when I say "start" - that's a little misleading; I have already been building up a catalogue of notes in my head - not just from childhood, noticing smells perhaps more strongly than others, but I mean the part where you consciously try to commit specific odours to memory. That started with the delivery of my first oils and chemicals, back in 2005.

Still. I feel like I've just about got the hang of "Hello, how are you? Nice to meet you." The part where you discuss matters of the heart and soul still eludes me. I'm determined to learn (as always).

There is the IFEAT Diploma in Perfumery, which I've been salivating about since I found out about it. Anyone have a spare £2000 knocking around?

When something feels like a Schroedinger's soap bubble

You know when there's something you've been only dreaming about, then daring to actually hope for and then it finally happens? And you're left with a surreal feeling of "if I examine it closely and really allow myself to accept that it's real, then by simply by doing so, I might make this lovely thing cease to exist."

Or maybe it's just me.

There are some stories about how person X did Y and due to sheer effort and perseverance they "got there in the end". I've cynically often wondered how much of such narrative is re-writing history after the event for the sake of nice storytelling.

The thing is; I might be on my way to becoming one of those stories. I just can't quite accept that yet, just in case. It feels very odd. Like I've crossed some previously invisible boundary.

I must immediately start adding bits of fascinating back-story. But before I have the chance to do that, here's the first related post, Why I think I'm a Nose, posted in 2005, and its follow-up Perfume; the book, the film and my obsession, posted about a year ago, in February 2007.

Last summer, I was given permission to hijack one of the existing product developers from the company I work for to help me - and we spent a week making prototypes (and back last summer I was still based part in the shops/working on projects, so that felt so amazing and surreal...and wonderful).

We made lots of different products and I developed some simple fragrances. Two days after the products had been packed up into brown cardboard boxes and left in the care of company directors I had a call from one of them (the chief perfumer and one of the founding members, no less): "I think these are lovely and you are very talented."

Somehow I still feel like I'm not allowed to say that out loud, or to think it even.

Months passed and I kept tinkering at home and filling up notebooks with more ideas.

Come January, I was completely moved out of the shops into various head office tasks, on the basis of some of the other work I'd done - and became too busy to pontificate about anything other than "when is my next flight/train/meeting/deadline". Which, by the way, was entirely a good thing, or I might have focused a little too much on wondering about what-ifs.

I decided to enrol on a basic science course at the OU to brush up on maths and chemistry. Then I rang the director of a part-time Diploma course in Cosmetic Science to discuss entry requirements (only to be told that due to my experience in the industry, they'd take me without any further questions asked. Oh).

In February, I was asked to research and write a report for the Research & Development team. I loved doing that. It felt like an unexpected, yet perfect marriage between my inner geek and outer cosmetics junkie. When I submitted the report, I was told they'd like some more in the future and this made me very happy indeed.

Couple of weeks ago, I received a short message: "You are wanted in the lab for a review of the product prototyping work you did for us last summer."

I went, and spent a day with the inventors. I didn't know what to expect, but I certainly didn't expect to be addressed throughout the day in a way that explicitly implied that I would now be allowed to conduct further experiments, work on R&D projects and help out in general.

Did I imagine all that?

In the week just gone, after coming back from Eastercon, I've suddenly had a shower of new things to work on, some of which are for the R&D department.

Right now, I would be happiest than I have ever been to date with my life and what this all implies and looks like, if it wasn't for the way I've had to store this Schroedinger's soap bubble away in a box and not look, not even peek at it, because it might just go *pop*.

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EDIT: Find out how it all started and what happened next...

You've got to start somewhere

It's funny how at school, I couldn't wait to get out of there, but now, I wish I could keep on studying. I suppose adult education and further studies are nifty things. They cater for this.

I was on self-imposed course ban for a couple of years so that I could focus on other things. I still did the space sausage thing and a couple of other things (shh).

For some time, I have been experimenting with a steadily growing obsession; making perfume and cosmetics (and I've written about this before here and here). It's something that ties right back to when I worked part-time after school at the local superstore. Or maybe it goes even further back - to the stuffing of grandmother's rose petals into a glass bottle full of water and hoping it would turn into perfume. I've heard some others tell the same stories, except that for me the fascination never ended. I've ended up working either in, or adjacent to the cosmetics industry for the majority of my life.

I almost quit the whole industry a while back. I tend to get irritated (ok, burst into spontaneous rants) when I see deliberately misleading advertising about cosmetics, companies putting profits ahead of honesty and all those aspects we know are part of selling that next face cream or scent. I also happen to be quite business minded and definitely don't begrudge making profit. It's the core part of why business is business. I just refuse to believe that there can't be a way to run an honest cosmetics business that still makes a healthy profit.

For years I really couldn't find one. I worked for several, respected many of them, but ultimately they all seemed to play the same game.

Meanwhile, I worked in IT and other things; missing the fun parts of the cosmetics industry, but shuddering every time I'd remember the not so nice elements.

Now I work for a cosmetics company that is perhaps at the other extreme of the scale. In many ways it's more of a campaigns and pressure group. I'm enjoying this change to the norm and it's been refreshing and liberating.

And I feel like I've been given permission to dig deeper. I want to go to the next level. So I've looked up a couple of routes through which I could qualify in Cosmetic Science and registered on the first pre-requisite course, which is due to start on the 1st of March. This feels very, very exciting.